


Three Steps Forward

by lingering_nomad



Series: From the Ashes [10]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Committed Relationship, Healthy Relationships, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Kink, Overcoming Trauma, Romance, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 04:54:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2495198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lingering_nomad/pseuds/lingering_nomad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke and Fenris make love: a deceptively simple thing, easily taken for granted. For Fenris, however, coming this far has required the slaying of some very big demons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Steps Forward

**Author's Note:**

> **Topography:** “spoken dialogue,” “ _flashback dialogue_ ,” ‘ _thoughts_ ,’ _emphasis_  
>  **A/N:** This fic is about overcoming sexual, mental and physical abuse. It has slight, but obvious D/s dynamics in play with Fenris subbing, because that is his preference in this story. Hawke is not perfect. He isn't supposed to be. He is not clairvoyant and he can't read minds. He has good intentions, but he's kind of paranoid about some things and tact is not his strong suit. Good communication can help everyone, but other than that, the experiences and coping mechanisms mentioned are specific to these characters. Please read accordingly.

Thought falls by the wayside as instinct bares its claws and digs deep. The controlled ravishment of moments earlier makes way for rapid, staccato surges, driving him on into the clasping heat of the body beneath him.

His muscles tense as the pleasure peaks. The knot at the base of his spine snaps free and a wave of bliss spills along his nerves. His cock begins to pulse. His lungs burn and he shudders, feeling the perfect tightness around him grow wet with more than oil. Face pressed to the crook of a shoulder, the heat and taste of skin thrums along his senses as he gulps down air, drunk on a scent that sings of expensive leather and dry red wine, of sparring at sunrise, long conversations after dark, and a thousand flashes of silver and green.

He manages another handful of thrusts and then stills, spent and shaking. The man beneath him has yet to find that brink, but he is close. Strong, slim fingers curl in the unbound tangle of his hair and tugs. “Wreath!”

Not, ‘ _Hawke_.’ The sound of his given name, groaned in that deep, breathless rumble rings a final spasm from his shaft, raising gooseflesh on his skin. Well-spoken as the elf can be, in these moments he’s not given to voicing his desires, communicating instead in a language of tones, and touches, and motions that charms Kirkwall’s Champion to no end. A swordsman’s grip bites into his shoulder, fists in his hair as that graceful body arches. Intimate muscles clench around him and he shudders at the rippling pressure, hot and slick on his overstimulated flesh.

That same part of Fenris is rigid as a blade and hot as unquenched steel where it presses up against Hawke’s belly. Nothing stops the other man from reaching down, taking hold and claiming the release he so eloquently yearns for, but…

Simplicity has rarely been a feature of the moth-and-flame allure that burns between them. Intricate, the steps to Fenris’ completion. Give, take. Push, pull. In turns yielding and demanding, until the feral thing that lives within the elf finds itself appeased and allows him to surrender, his body turning pliant in Hawke’s hands, his pleasure Hawke’s to mould according to his whim.

An outsider looking in might well scorn it as a remnant of a former slave’s conditioning – a fear Hawke once held as well.

It is a facile way of thinking, though. As Fenris himself has pointed out.

 

“…and what of it? What does it matter if I served Danarius in _that_ capacity as well? You take no issue when I use the skills he inflicted on me to press our advantage in battle. Why should it concern you if I do the same here?”

Pragmatic.

Maker, the man was _nothing_ if not that!

Their first partaking of each other had transpired suddenly, spurred by an excess of fear and anger and want that had been boiling for months, if not years. There’d been no chance for forethought or guile. Merely finding something on hand to ease the joining had been an answered prayer in itself. Fenris had been, not docile per se, but he’d followed Hawke’s lead – much as he did in battle, in fact – responding moment by moment, adjusting to the rise and flux of events with a focus more innate than learned.

A few weeks into their revived courtship, some nuances of the elf’s not-inconsiderable flair for obliging another man’s pleasure had become impossible to discount and Hawke…was out of his depth.

They’d never spoken about the baser aspects of Fenris’ enslavement, but it wasn’t a matter of not knowing – _of course_ Hawke knew!

The Tevinter wasn’t privy to the exact year of his birth, but he couldn’t have been much older than Carver. Hawke guessed his age at around twenty-two when they met and by then, Fenris had been running for three years already. A youth – a _child_ , even – slender-limbed and fair-faced as _he_ was? It was hardly the choice of a man whose interest vested solely in his own protection.

So yes, Hawke had known, but hearing it confirmed still landed like a blow.

“It is not the same thing!”

“Is it not? If it serves our mutual ends?”

“By the Breath, Wolf, you cannot—You expect me to believe that you can…that you _want_ that?!”

That, had been the wrong thing to say. The mercenary’s fuse, never long to begin with, disintegrated in a green-eyed flash of indignation. His hands curled into fists on the mattress and for a moment Hawke sat braced for a blow. It never came, though it would’ve been preferable to watching his lover rise from the bed and start to dress.

Hawke was on his feet in an instant, uncaring of his nudity as he moved to block the door. “You’re mad if you think I’m sitting idle while you walk out on me again!” snarled in answer to the quizzical glower being levelled on him.

Fenris huffed, eyes rolling, but he stopped fussing with his lacings.

“First of all, I am merely returning to the mansion for the night. Secondly—” He grimaced, then sighed, gaze shifting to a spot past Hawke’s shoulder as he was want to do when a confession left him vulnerable. “If what you said reflects your true opinion of me, I fail to see why you would wish me to stay.”

It was Hawke’s turn to sigh. Nervous habit had him reaching up to rake sword-callused fingers through his hair, snagging the strands.

He carried a staff as well now.

Anders insisted; said it was crucial for Kirkwall to see its Champion as ‘ _a mage._ ’

There was the one from the Chantry that his father had supposedly trained with; another salvaged from the darkspawn prison in Vimmark. The sheer spite of having the Arishok’s battle-axe converted had appealed in the tumultuous aftermath of their duel and the snub to Meredith had proven an additional boon. Hawke had been a sword-slinger all his life, though, and old passions died hard.

“You _know_ how I feel, Wolf. Do not doubt that, but…Please, love. I need you to help me understand.”

For a moment, Fenris seemed to vacillate. Then, frowning as if screwing up his courage, he shucked his trousers and sank down on the bed. The shedding of clothes was a show of good faith, a promise that he wouldn’t run, and a block of lead dissolved from Hawke’s chest as he moved to sit beside him.

“You accused me of deception,” Fenris began, staring at a spot between his knees. “Of mongering lies when I claim to...” He grimaced, hand rising as if to snatch the words from the air. “To prefer your urging over taking the initiative.”

He looked up then, eyes wide and earnest as he peered past his tousled fringe. “To what end, Wreath? What is there to gain from such pretence? All that would accomplish, is to enslave myself anew – to a _dead_ man and with chains of my own making.” Vehemence burned from him, hardening his gaze. “If I yearned for such a life, I would not have left it to begin with. I am no gluttonous martyr, Hawke. That, would be that Warden you consort with and I shall thank you not to confuse me with _him.”_

Fenris hesitated, scowl turning uncertain. _“_ And if not that, then…” Full lips drew into a grim line as he glanced away. “The alternative, is that you think me depraved for refusing to foreswear this part of myself. And it _is_ mine, make no mistake. I fought it long enough. If it was truly an infection to be cured of, I would have carved it out and never thought on it again.”

Silence hung between them as Hawke considered what was said. Clearly, his lover had given this more than passing thought.

“I’m sorry,” and he was. “It isn’t that I doubt you, or that I could ever think ill of you for finding pleasure in this bed, but—” Something thickened in Hawke’s throat, forcing him to swallow. “I have _seen_ the hatred that you bear toward…that _bastard_ ,” he bit out, loathe to bring the Maleficar’s name into their sacred space, even as his spectre hovered overhead. “And when you do for me as you did… _before_ , I fear that a day will come when you will look upon _me_ , and see _him_. And the thought of that, it’s—” Hawke stopped, head bowed, shaking as if to disavow the notion.

Firmly gentle fingers cupped his jaw as Fenris turned his head and kissed him. Soft and slow, as if to erase the bitter tang of the words. As Hawke kissed back, it occurred to him that such an open, easy showing of this man’s affection would never have been shared with the magister, and there was solace in the thought.

It ended with a tender stroke across his cheek and then, with Hawke’s human hand clasped in both the elf’s, Fenris drew a breath and set about explaining:

Danarius’ cruelty had not been indifference.

Instead, it flowed from his discernment.

The magister possessed his favourite slave as a demon does its host. He’d learned where to press, what to twist, and what to slacken, distilling Fenris’ motives, his temptations, his shameful wants and secret fears and once he did, he moulded him like clay.

“…So you see, Wreath, if I cut off every thought, every impulse, every part of me he touched, there’d be nothing left.”

Fenris had to find a way to make his past his own, or he would lose his mind. And holding on, meant accepting the truth: as a slave, displeasing meant suffering – whether his own or watching someone else’s. To live – and _let_ live – was to oblige. His body had belonged to his master and whether as a tool or a toy, it was a thing to be used in all its facets. Sex was but one more task he could perform to increase his utility and what was freely offered, required no force to take. Danarius had made a murderer and torturer of him. Kneeling naked on a floor or prostrated on a bed, was no greater intimacy or imposition.

Fenris had served and he’d lived, which granted him the chance to fight and prevail.

Danarius had revelled in being ‘ _his creator_ ,’ but Fenris refused to pay him another moment’s homage by despising himself for who he was. Danarius’ violation had been a matter of survival; what he shared with Hawke, was an indulgence in life. Even if the basic mechanics aligned, there was a vast difference between the fawning of a fearful slave and the seduction of a fervent lover – contrary as day and night, as water and sand, as apostate and magister.

There was no risk of confusion.

“…but, these are hardly simple things to speak of _,”_ the elf conceded. Self-conscious, but not ashamed. “I…believed it was understood.”

It hadn’t been, not before, but it _should_ have.

What Hawke admired most about this man, and had since the day they met was his dogged refusal to allow his past to steal his future.

Fenris was beautiful, but it was his _strength_ that left the mage in awe.

 

Still trembling from his own release, Hawke pulls his spent cock from inside the elf and braces his weight on his forearms, trailing kisses downward.

Fenris draws his knees up and as Hawke settles in-between, he takes a moment to appreciate the view.

The petrichor scent of lyrium is heavy on the air and he watches, ever fascinated, as a pulse of light runs through etchings on his lover’s skin. It begins in the triad of dots above his groin, skirting ‘round the blessedly unmarked island of his genitals, dipping to converge behind his balls, and fanning outward along the inside of his thighs. Lower still, his well-used anus flutters – loose muscles attempting to close and not entirely succeeding. A thread of semen dribbles from the slightly swollen rim and the lust that stabs at Hawke is sharp and potent as dagger, rivalled only by the fierce compulsion to protect.

A throaty whine billows from above, inflexion timed to the roll of narrow hips. There’s a pause as Fenris sucks in air, then, “Wreathhh!” drawn out in a hiss.

Hawke grins as he shakes his hair back from his face, wets his lips, leans in. He presses a kiss to the leaking slit, tongue flicking out to lap up the drops catching on the folds of foreskin, retracted as it is. A few more meander down the shaft, smoothing the friction of his palm as he strokes. His grip is loose – frustratingly so if the short, rolling thrusts of Fenris’ hips is anything to judge by. The elf mewls, low and needy, but he makes no demands for more.

Hawke’s grin widens. He can draw this out if he wishes. Play and tease and torture until the green of Fenris’ eyes grows dark and wild with pleasure, until moon-pale hair is soaked with sweat and bronze skin glistens, the markings sparking, bright as flame under his touch. The sense of power is heady, mildly addictive. But no. To deny Fenris means denying himself and he is suddenly impatient to feel the other man tremble, to hear the reedy tremor thread through his voice and taste his spend as comes undone.

Laving the glans, he traces the foreskin with the tip of his tongue, nudging it further down. Fenris’ thighs shift, spread wide as they are to accommodate Hawke’s presence; one hooks across his shoulder. The pressure of heel and calf against his back urges him on, and this time, Hawke capitulates.

He has no true basis for comparison (aside from Isabela’s wild tales, which are best taken with a bag of salt) but he suspects Fenris is well endowed for an elf. His mouth had barley sealed around the head when Fenris thrusts, pushing a good third of his length past Hawke’s teeth.

Not deep enough to choke.

Not quite, but close.

Warm, firm flesh and silken skin fills Hawke’s mouth, feeling larger than it looks; larger than it felt in his hand even.

His eyes water and his vision blurs, but they’ve done this before and he swallows through the reflexive closing of his throat. He holds himself still, focussing on the taste of his lover, on the pulse of veins against his lips and the smooth heat of the head against his tongue. Fenris is panting, restless in his need, but Hawke doesn’t have to _see_ the smirk to know it is there.

As much as the elf enjoys being led, he also likes to make Hawke work for his compliance.

The thrust is part of the game they play – a friendly reminder that it was a _man_ and a _warrior_ who reclined in his bed and that any semblance of dominance he asserted ought never to be taken for granted.

Playing his part, Hawke pulls back and makes a show of flexing his jaw, drawing the low-rumbling cross between a laugh and moan from that lyrium-scarred throat.

Fist curling loosely around the elf’s spit-wet hardness, Hawke’s free hand finds his loosened, seeded hole and a finger presses past the rim. The channel pulses, keeping time with the throb of the cock in his hand. Fenris mewls, eyes dark while light flares from his markings. Hawke’s finger curls inside him, wrist up, pressing into the thin barrier of muscle in search of—He knows he’s hit the mark when a chocked garble of Tevene erupts from the elf and with a grin of his own, he angles Fenris’ cock to his lips, and sinks down.

Fenris is panting; quivering in Hawke’s hold as his orgasm looms. Briefly, he feels a hand descend on the back of his head, barely alighting before wrenching away. It seems a small thing. Easily dismissed as inconsequential.

But Hawke knows his lover well.

 

For all Fenris had endured, he remained a sensual creature. His favoured coat was Antivan leather lined with silk – a gift from Hawke’s own mother. He liked the scent of soap imported from Navarra, was partial to Orlesian wine and was more at ease than ‘ _the Champion_ ’ himself at the parties he attended on Hawke’s arm.

He was fond of sex as well.

Of the pair of them, Fenris was the more adventurous by far, which made the moments’ hesitation all the more revealing. Ghosts howled in those little cues, pieces that revealed a ghastly puzzle when Hawke allowed himself to look.

If there was one thing he regretted about the magister’s demise, it was that the chance to kill him would never be offered again. He’d told Danarius as much – among the few words he’d deigned to trade before unleashing the Fade upon the other mage. He’d meant it when he said it, but he hadn’t known how deeply rooted the sentiment would become.

“…No! I do _not_ want to ‘ _talk about it_ ’ _!_ What I _want_ , is for you to keep your bloody hands off my bloody neck when we rut! Why is this difficult for you to grasp?!”

Fenris had been in his lap, back to chest, throat arched as his head canted back on Hawke’s shoulder.

It was meant to be a gentle stroke, but Hawke might as well have been holding a knife.

He’d sat there, wide-eyed and staring, wanting with all his might to make reparation even as the fear of making things worse petrified him to the core.

Fenris stood before him, breathing hard, teeth gritted, fists clenched…and, blessedly, found something on Hawke’s face that his faltering apologies had lacked. The elf breathed deeply, visibly gathering composure. He mumbled something in Tevene and slumped down on the bed, a tentative hand coming to rest on Hawke’s forearm. His gaze was on the floor, silverite hair obscuring his face.

“It wasn’t... _always_ terrible, you know,” was Fenris’ attempt at reassurance – of himself as much as Hawke.

He despised being pitied. Hawke knew him well enough to know he’d be embarrassed over his ‘ _momentary weakness_ ’ and that this was the other man’s way of saving face. To _his_ ears, though, the obvious downplaying of his lover’s torment only made it worse: ‘ _Really, Wreath, it wasn’t all that bad. Why, sometimes when he forced himself on me, I didn’t fear for my life at all_.’

And Maker help him, it wasn’t altogether hard to imagine a man of the magister’s ilk stooping to tend to his most ‘ _cherished’_ slave’s arousal on occasion. It would ensure that the ground Fenris stood on remained as quicksand beneath his feet. Ever shifting, ever treacherous, eyes ever on his master and his one lifeline, a sick mockery of hope: serve, obey, submit, conform – ‘ _and when I rape you again, I might not be inclined to strangle you to death._ ’

Hawke swallowed quickly as his stomach rebelled. He hadn’t meant to reacted, but the stiffening of his spine couldn’t be helped and of course, Fenris felt it. He tensed and glanced up sharply. His eyes were wide as he studied Hawke’s face. Guarded, braced for judgment.

“I’m glad he’s dead,” was all Wreath trusted himself to say.

Fenris huffed, unconsoled. Another sharp breath and he was shoving at Hawke’s shoulder, urging him to lie back. His head was planted on Hawke’s chest with near enough force to crack ribs, but there were no protests when Hawke wrapped his arms around him.

It was dark, hearth burning low and the candles long since doused, when he felt Fenris’ ragged confession breathed against his skin, “As am I.”

He’d come to understand a great deal about Magister Claudius Danarius – more than he’d ever wanted to, frankly. There was no denying that the mage had been a monster in every terrible sense of the word, but more chilling by far, were the glimmers of humanity that endured until the end.

Ambition.

Likely that was the _one_ vice the late magister had always carried with him.

But perhaps there’d been a time, before succumbing to the defilement of demons and his own base nature, when he hadn’t been _entirely_ corrupt.

Hawke’s entrepreneurial pedigree might not have been on par with Varric’s, but he was a businessman in own right. He knew about the thousand tiny gambles involved in the bid to make a profit: which jobs to take, which to turn down, which payments to chase and which losses to cut. When Athenril smiled at him coldly, appropriating half of his and Carver’s paltry stipend as reparation for one ruined crate, he’d known that she spoke truthfully when she said it was “ _just business._ ”

The chase given by Danarius, however, had been very, very _personal_.

Hawke had no idea how much lyrium it took to imbue a man with the sort of power his lover commanded. What he _did_ know, was that scores of bounty hunters, deployed recurrently over the span of a decade to chase a high-risk mark across leagues of foreign land, did _not_ come cheap either.

And of course, there’d been the encounter with the Maleficar himself.

For all the bone-chilling _evil_ Danarius exuded, he’d seemed genuinely taken aback by Fenris’ refusal to go to him. Wounded even. As though he’d truly believed that once Fenris _saw_ him, there and in person, he would forget about this ‘ _freedom nonsense_ ’ and come crawling to his master, head bowed and properly contrite.

The naked disbelief on the magister’s face, in that final instant before Fenris tore through his arteries, had relegated Hawke to a Chantry pew for the better part of an hour, silently reviewing his own catalogue of wrongs and the faces of those affected. Even if amends were impossible, if – Maker forbid – anyone ever regarded _him_ with that much raw, unbridled hate in their eyes, if nothing else, Wreath would _know_ where he’d erred.

Perhaps more grotesquely tragic than anything else, was the proof that lingered in Fenris’ markings. A work of undeniable evil, and yet...

There was precision there too.

Intricacy.

Whoever had drawn the designs had done so with _care_ , serving not only function, but aesthetics. Hawke would never confess it aloud, but when he looked upon those curving lines, what he saw, was a labour of _love_.

Andraste be his witness, if he’d ever harboured even the tiniest, most miniscule flicker of curiosity about the lures of blood and demon-bolstered magic, that single realisation had snuffed it at the wick.

The Fade was a place of impulse, of will and want made real and ‘ _love_ ,’ a pretty word used to mark the greatest of such forces. If anything could take what he felt for his green-eyed Wolf and _twist_ it; breaking, and bending, and shifting until it became the fuel of men like Quentin and Danarius…

Hawke would rather be dead than made Tranquil, but he’d rather be Tranquil than warped into _that_.

Give, not take.

Not rule, but serve.

“… _that which is best in me, not that which is most base_.”

No cleric would bless the union of a human and an elf, both men and one a life-long apostate, but Hawke refused to allow the bias of others to diminish the weight of his vows.

 

Fenris arches as he crests and Hawke holds on, riding out the jerking of his hips as he drinks him down.

With both their passion spent, he climbs up the bed and settles in to watch as his lover drifts down from the climatic high. Fenris is flushed, chest heaving, lips blood-swollen and tinged a shade of red to match. He looks strong, young, virile and utterly at ease.

In the enchantment of the moment, even the eerie web of scarring, dormant now, holds a trace of the benign.

Lashes flutter, borne on an indolent sigh, and then green eyes are glittering up at him. A lyrium-infused hand cups his face, stubble-roughened despite that morning’s shave. Hawke covers the hand with his own and turns his head to kiss the palm.

“I love you,” he murmurs, brushing sweat-drenched stands back from gleaming skin.

Fenris smiles, and for once, his gaze does not waver as he quietly responds, “I am yours.”

**Author's Note:**

>  **End A/N:** Since the question came up, I just want to clarify that, yes, this is based on an actual play-through. So yes, my mage was seriously rocking rogue armour and a broadsword through the whole thing. And yes, it was awesome! If anyone is curious about the mods used, let me know, and I’ll send on the links.


End file.
